BURNLEY must act fast or risk losing a share of £500 million regeneration money, the council has been warned.

Town Hall bosses said the Government's Elevate programme was well underway, but it must not be complacent.

Senior councillors at stressed the programme was set to revitalise the whole of the borough, and not just the areas selected for regeneration.

Burnley borough is part of an East Lancashire Pathfinder programme, one of nine areas in the country bidding for £500 million of regeneration cash.

Burnley has now formed a new working group so that it can respond quickly to requests from the Government.

The council's director for the Pathfinder programme, Mike Cook, said: "We need to recognise that for the foreseeable future there will be an ongoing need to take speedy, sometimes difficult decisions, related to Elevate in Burnley.

"Burnley, Elevate and all other Pathfinders have been told in no uncertain terms the importance the Government attaches to delivery if future funding is to be secured and our hard won credibility maintained.

"The Government has been very clear that if any one Pathfinder is not performing they will simply transfer the resources to other Pathfinders."

Peter Kenyon. a council executive member. said: "This programme is so critical to Burnley and East Lancashire we need to make sure we get the process of communicating what is happening right.

"It will be of huge benefit to every area because of the effect it will have on every borough and the local economy. We need to keep the public up to date.

"If we do not do that there will be all sorts of cells generating lies and conspiracy theories circulating the town. We know there will be people around who will want to generate those sorts of messages."

Mr Cook added: "This programme will fundamentally change the image of Burnley and lead to significant increases in investment in all parts of the borough.

"The impact that the Elevate programme will undoubtedly be borough wide."